


Fright and Respite

by divisionten



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Halloween, Haunted Houses, School Festivals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divisionten/pseuds/divisionten
Summary: Aoi and Sakura brave a haunted house put on by the upperclassmen. A gift for the Halloween Danganronpa exchange on Tumblr!





	Fright and Respite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/gifts).

> Please enjoy this short fluff piece!
> 
> (No I haven't forgotten my longer Dangan work, my DR muse has just been kind of all over the place. I'm finishing up some Kingdom Hearts fic and Good Omens shorts right now, and I do hope to get back to it eventually)

“Heeeeey! Sakura! You done setting up those decorations yet?” Aoi bounced on her heels as she hopped over to her best friend. Sakura, as the unquestioningly tallest and strongest in their class, was draping the bunting at the highest levels for their class’s fall festival room.

“Just a moment,” she replied, hooking the bright twirl of streamers around to finish the back wall. “Done.”

“It looks sooooo good!” Aoi said cheerfully. “I love it!”

Sakura merely grunted, embarrassed, in reply. “Could be better.”

“No it can’t, and you know it.”

“Ladies?” Byakuya said, arms crossed, surveying the work. “I think you’re clear, at least for now.”

“Mhmm,” Makoto said, nodding. “We’re going to set up the tarot and palm reading stations, then we’re taking turns four at a time.”

“Right,” Aoi said rolling her eyes. “It’s us two, with…?”

“Me, and Celeste,” Makoto said. “She’s insisted on doing tea reading at her station. Apparently she actually knows how and isn’t just going to uh…”

“Bullshit it, like the rest of us,” Byakuya finished for him with a shrug. Makoto was far too innocent to sully his lips with a curse. “The dreadlocked oaf is going to do crystal ball readings if he can get it back from Leon.”

Sakura shook her head. “There’s enough baseballs around. He doesn’t need to use a solid glass sphere as one.”

“I think he’s doing it to be a tease,” Aoi commented. “Hate bullies.”

“Well, as far as I can see, Leon hasn’t broken it yet, so no harm, no foul, right?” Makoto piped in, a tad too optimistic. “Anyway. You’re good. Just be back at four so we can do our shift.”

“Do I have to wear the costume?” Sakura grunted.

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!” Aoi piped. “I’ve got a big ol’ witch hat for each of us! We can twin!”

“**_Junko _**twins,” Sakura noted, a hint of something else in her voice.

“I promise, you’ll be cute!” Aoi insisted. “We’re working together, after all, come on, let’s go see if any of the other classrooms are done so we can do something before we have to start!”

* * *

“Where did you want to go? I know most of the events are in the auxiliary building.”

Aoi shrugged. “’Course that’s the case. There’s way more students on that side. There’s only what, six classrooms on ours? Though I know the general farming society’s using our greenhouse for some veggie competition.”

“Right. Oh. Hey, Peko.” Sakura regarded Peko, one year their senior, and both originally from the same all-girl’s academy before each had been recruited for their martial arts prowess.

Peko was hugging her shoulders, feeling extremely awkward. She was in a cheap witch costume that was just a hair too short to be decent for school.

Peko turned pink, and was about to run, but Sakura clapped a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to wear that.”

“I know but… M-… um, someone in my class said it looked nice on me, so.”

“Woooow, that’s super out of character for you!” Aoi said with her ever-present optimistic smile. “What’s your class doing, anyway?”

“Haunted house.”

Aoi nearly jumped out of her skin. “Oh. No. Nonononono no.”

Sakura gave her a sideways glance. “You don’t like haunted houses?”

“Not in a million years.”

“Even if we went together? I promise nothing could possibly hurt you.”

Aoi blushed hard, looking between Sakura and Peko. Peko’s costume was way more cute than scary. There was no way this thing could be that bad.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go, but on one condition.”

“Hm?”

“You twin with me! When we’re psychics later!”

“What- I- very well.”

Peko flicked her eyes back and forth between them. “I don’t think we open for another half-hour, but I can go ask M- I can go ask Fuyuhiko if we’re ready to let in other Hope’s Peak students to test some of the animatronics.”

“**_Animatronics_**?!” Aoi and Sakura asked in unison.

“Kazuichi’s been busy. We’ve all put our talents into it. Well, except me. I’m managing the door.”

“Yeeeeeah, no, I wouldn’t want you chasing me down a dark hallway with a katana,” Aoi shuddered. “Even if it is fake.”

“I may be having second thoughts,” Sakura admitted.

“Nobody in there will touch you,” Peko said authoritatively. “The worst is a few canisters of compressed cold air.”

Sakura squinted, looking down at Peko. “If I break anything, it’s self-defense.”

“Noted.”

* * *

“Are we really going to do this? They closed off almost the whole top floor! You have to get to greenhouse from the fire exit.”

“That would give them a lot of space.”

“Yeah, including the generator room and even the cold storage for the science labs. That place is creepy enough as is.”

“Laaaaaadies,” Peko said, deadpan, breaking their chatter. “You are about to enter the forgotten floor of Hope’s Peak. The rusted remains of years past are beyond this curtain, and nothing is as it seems. Touch nothing, and stay on the path marked with reflective tape. Nothing will touch you, but… well… some former experiments by the graduated classes of years gone by… may have reactivated. Be brave, and good luck.” Peko blinked. “How’d I do?”

“Needs work,” Sakura said. “Least you made Aoi laugh a little.”

Peko handed each of them a flashlight. “Flash it quickly three times if you want a rescue. Otherwise, you’re on your own.”

“Roger,” Sakura said, flicking on her light. “Shall we?”

* * *

The main hallway was immediately blocked by rubble- a mountain of TVs all tuned to static, stacked haphazardly in a tower.

Aoi whistled. “They’ve got a **_budget_**.”

“Byakuya offered to pay for something more extravagant for us,” Sakura reminded her as the TVs flashed to life and an animation began to play passing around between the screens like the character was moving between the TVs. It wasn’t just extremely high budget, but straight up well done.

And then the character turned to face them, running close until its face was the size of the entire TV bank, pieces of the face split between all the displays. An eye popped out of a socket, and a giant eyeball rolled to the floor near them.

Aoi jumped a solid half meter into the air. Sakura grabbed her by the back. “Just a prop,” she reminded the both of them, particularly herself. It was a lot more surprising than even she was expecting. They turned, following the tape marks a sharp left into the first classroom.

The entire room was stacked up with TVs, and the desks and chairs towered to make piles of debris they had to weave through.

“Shhhh,” Sakura commanded. “Someone’s crying.”

“I hear laughing,” Aoi whispered back, as the animated girl followed them through the televisions in the first class, now shedding limbs and cackling at them from the screens. A wire lit up with LED when she “jumped” between one screen to another, as if she were riding it to the next tower of electronics.

To anyone unfamiliar with their classmates, the next thing they saw would have probably scared them into running to the next corridor.

But Aoi just laughed hysterically. “**_Chiaki_**?”

Chiaki was tethered from the ceiling, bound up in cables and wires, some of which were designed to look like they were plugged directly into her face. She immediately stopped fake crying.

“Eep!”

“No, no,” Sakura insisted. “You’re supposed to scare us, aren’t you? That can’t be comfortable.”

“Kazuichi made the harness, it’s actually like being in a hammock,” Chiaki insisted, her voice altered slightly by some sort of digital modulator. “I could just fall asleep in it.”

“Chiaki!” someone hissed from out of sight, that sounded suspiciously like Nagito.

“Oh, er, ah, I told them Peko and I should have switched. But I couldn’t give instructions right, either, so…”

Aoi was howling with laughter.

“Do you want us to re-enter the room?” Sakura said, giving a side glance to Aoi under the flashlight and television glow.

“Um, yes, please,” Chiaki said, shrinking a little.

“Its- ahahahaha- it- be glad it’s us, and the real people haven’t- ahahahaha- come yet,” Aoi choked out.

Sakura nodded. “If you don’t think you can’t break character, just stay quiet and glare at everyone who passes. How about that?”

“You really think that’s enough?”

“The costume and the set is great, really. If you’re too shy to talk, just stare. You’ll scare anyone,” Aoi insisted, as she breathed out and calmed down. “Mysterious Voice Haver, is it ok if you reset the room for us?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Probably-Nagito grumbled. “Hang on. Okay, go back to the start of the room, I’m resetting.”

Aoi and Sakura retraced their steps, following the glowing tape lines, and the cartoon girl restarted her loop through the room. When they finally reached the end, where Chiaki was bound up into the cabling system, she just turned her head, and followed them with her head and eyes.

Just as they were about to push the door to go to the next section, she hissed.

“Help me.”

Aoi knew who she was, knew she was fine, and still jumped a few centimeters off the ground.

“Much better!” Sakura cried over her shoulder as they moved into the next section.

* * *

The next room was filled with mannequins- some missing limbs or heads, all in gorgeous gowns that had been shredded beyond recognition. Some creaked and turned their limbs when one projected with a face of the anime character- the ghost in the machine- that had been haunting them since they entered the walk through.

“Ryota put in some serious work on the animation,” Sakura said, to calm down a re-un-nerved Aoi.

“Y-yeah,” Aoi replied, a shakiness to her voice as one of the dolls, seemingly missing an arm, sashayed closer.

“If you can’t find my arm, won’t you give me yours?” It asked, blonde hair cascading over a torn green ball gown.

Sakura nearly punched Sonia out of reflex; only Sonia’s extensive military training helped her to dodge the blow.

“The holiest of shits!” Sonia cried, in her normal voice.

“S-Sorry!” Sakura yelped as she grabbed Aoi, threw her on a shoulder, and high tailed it from the hallway down into the second classroom.

“Hrm, well at least I know I am fully prepared for later!” Sonia said cheerfully as she returned to her post, unfazed as the ogre and her tiny friend fled into the creepy hospital that awaited them next.

* * *

“Your pictures, ladies!” a cheerful redhead- Mahiru- said, upon their exit of the last room, which was a sort of mob boss lair-slash-Satan-pit lorded over by Fuyuhiko, who, unlike the rest of the actors in the experience, didn’t break character, even when Aoi breathed him down (Teruteru had nearly cried in his own bloodied kitchens in the third classroom, and Mikan kept apologizing for being too slow in her own space).

Aoi laughed at the roll of prints. “Of course you were taking our photo, hey, Sakura, we should get some copies made.”

“How was it?” Ryota asked, flicking though a bank of monitors alongside Ibuki, who was triggering the sound effects and music, while Kazuichi was checking the remote diagnostics of his own mechanical creations.

“Honestly? The sets, and lighting, and all of the technical stuff was amazing,” Aoi said.

“Your actors need some work,” Sakura admitted at the same time. “Except Fuyuhiko.”

“Yes, well, he actually took his role seriously,” Mahiru sighed, eyeing Soina from one of the monitors, who was dancing with a mannequin between groups. “Chiaki tries, she really does, and Sonia’s just giggling like mad. Found out she’s a huge fan of serial killers, ugggggh.”

“All in all, pretty good. That trick right at the start nearly had me,” Aoi admitted. “I think if your class actually all acted their parts Sakura might have decked someone.”

“And you would have wet yourself,” Sakura said quietly.

“Aaaaaah, ehem…” Aoi said, turning blue. “Let’s try something else before we have to be back in our own class.”

“The soccer team has a donut stand,” Sakura suggested as Aoi waved goodbye to the upperclassmen, shoving the photos in her shoulder bag.

“Waaaaait, whaaaaaaat?” Aoi cried. “You didn’t tell me this sooner, why?!”

“Because I wanted to patronize our own classmates first. Most people going to the festival are going for the food. Which is on the auxiliary campus.”

“You… do have a point.”

“Well?”

“Doughnuts!” Aoi cried, grabbing Sakura’s arm, cutting though the greenhouse and down the back exit through the fields. “C’mon!”


End file.
